According to a new survey released by the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (ICPI) gross sales for concrete paver contractors in the United States and Canada increased by 7.7% during 2017, while four of every five contractors reported difficulty in recruiting and hiring quality employees.

The 2018 ICPI Contractor Industry Report identified business trends from 171 segmental concrete pavement contractors in 2017. Respondents included ICPI members and non-members. Industry Insights of Columbus, Ohio conducted the study in January 2018 for ICPI.

“This report confirms a significant challenge for the segmental concrete pavement industry,” said Kendall Anderegg, ICPI board chair. “There is a large and growing demand among residential and commercial consumers for our industry’s products. Our goal is training more contractors and installers to help meet this demand. ICPI and its members already have the industry’s top education and training programs for in-service contractors. We are now creating and launching a Workforce Development program to attract more young people to the concrete paver installation trade. There are tremendous opportunities in our industry for more contractors and installers.”

Other key findings include:

The residential market remains strong representing 69.5% of sales, while commercial/government projects are surging with 30.5% of sales (an increase of 6.5% from the previous year).

1% of contractors provided worksite safety training to their employees.

A 5.0% median wage/salary increase occurred in 2017, while a similar 5.0% median rise is forecasted for 2018.

The study also includes data on technologies contractors use to monitor and reduce exposure of crew members to respirable silica, as well as on company promotion and certification trends. Besides reporting overall data, results provide insight into the industry regarding gross sales, ICPI membership level, length of construction season, and number of employees during the construction season. The 64-page report is available for purchase at http://www.icpi.org/shop.